Managing competition in hybrid drug markets: How Snapchat mediates opportunities and risks for drug dealers’ practices

Background: Social media platforms have come to play a key role in facilitating retail-level drug sales. While much existing research has focused on how digital technologies shape seller-customer relations, this article draws on a postphenomenological approach to explore how the affordances of digital technologies mediate and re-organize drug dealers’ interactions with competing dealers.<br/>Methods: This article is based on in-depth digitally facilitated oral interviews with 25 individuals with experience of dealing drugs via social media platforms.<br/>Results: Snapchat mediates new forms of visibility and surveillance, enabling sellers to monitor local competitors’ prices, products, and market activity. For many, these practices become routine, contributing to competitive price adjustments. While Snapchat creates new strategic opportunities, including the possibility to carry out scams and robberies, it also generates vulnerabilities, such as heightened exposure to rival dealers and the risk of falling victim to these same tactics. In response, dealers adopt various mitigation tactics, such as strategic self-censorship, customer screening via in-app data, remote logouts, and multi-account setups. <br/>Conclusion: Snapchat mediates both opportunities and vulnerabilities in drug sellers’ inter-dealer relations. This study highlights the analytic value of postphenomenology in understanding how digital technologies condition sellers’ competitive practices and the balance between visibility and risk.